The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-10-28
MANKATo FREE Pass.
AT PEACE WITH ENEMIES.
Or. TAlMAGE'S SERMON At THE
BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.

Why We Should Forgive-In Humor Ex-
hausting to Physical and Mental Health.
Those Who Preserve Their Temper In
Debate Generally Come Out Ahead.
BROOKLYN, Oct 23.-The Rev. T. De Witt
Talmage, ID. D., preached in the Brooklyn
this morning on the subject: "For-
giveness before shutdown" After explaining
some passages concerning Hezekiah, DR.. Tai
mage gave out the following hymn. which
was sung by the congregation:
This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way,
While each in expectation lives
And longs to see the day
Professor Henry Eyre Browne rendered on
the organ an aria with variations, by Cramer.
The text of the sermon was from Ephesians
iv, 26: ''Let not the sun go down upon your
wrath" Dr.. Talmage said:
What pillow embroidered of all colors
hath the dying day. The cradle OF clouds
from which the sun rises is beautiful enough,
but it is surpassed by the many colored
in which at evening it is buried.
Sunset among the mountainsl 1t almost
takes ones breath away to recall the scene.
The long shadows stretching over the plain
make the glory of the departing light on the
tiptop crags and struck aslant through the
foliage the more transpicuous. Saffron and
gold, purple and crimson commingled. All
the castles of cloud in confagration. Burn
ing Moscows on the sky. Hanging gardens
of roses at their deepest blush. Banners of
vapors, red as if from carnage, in the battle
of the elements. The hunter among the Adj
and the Swiss villager among the
Alps know what is sunset among
the mountains. After a storm at sea
the rolling grandeur into which the sun goes
down to battle at nightfall is something to
make weird and splendid dreams out of for a
lifetime. Alexander Smith in his poem COM
pareS the sunset to "the barren beach of hell, ~
but this wonderful spectacle of nature makes
me think of the FURNISHED wall of heaven.
Paul in prison writing my text remembers
some of the gorgeous sunsets among the
mountains of Asia Minor, and how he had
often seen the towers of Damascus blaze in
the close of The Oriental days, and he flashes
out that memory in the text when he says:
"Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. u
Sublime and all suggestive duty for people
then and people now. Forgiveness before
shutdown. He who never feels the throb of
II Ilc WHO CdH Walk
among the injustices of the world, inflicted
upon himself and others, without flush of
cheek or flash of eye or agitation of nature,
is either i'll sympathy with wrong or semi
idiotic When Ananias, the high priest, Or
dered the constables of the court room to
smite Paul in the mouth, Paul fired up and
said: God shall smite thee, thou whited
wall" In the sentence Immediately before
my text Paul commands the Ephesians: "Be
ye angry and sin not" 1t all depends on
what you are mad at and how long the feel
ing lasts whether anger is right or wrong.
Life is full of exasperations. Saul after
David, Succoth after Gideon, Korah after
Moses, the PaSquins after Augustus, the
pharisees after Christ, and every one has had
his purSuerS, and we are swindled OF belied or
misrepresented or prosecuted or in some way
wrongcd, and the danger is that healthful
indignation shall become baleful spite, and
that our feelings settle down into a pro-
longed outpouring of temper displeasing to
God and ruinous to ourselves, and hence the
important injunction of the text: "Let not
the sun go down on your wrath"
Why that limitation to ones anger? Why
that period of flaming vapor set TO punctuate
flaming disposition! What has the sunset
got to do with ones resentful emotionsi
Was it a haphazard sentiment written by
Paul without special significance! No, no;
think of five reasons why we should not let
the sun set before our temper sets.
First, because twelve hours is long enough
to be cross about any wrong inflicted upon
us. Nothing is so exhausting to physical
health or mental faculty as protracted in,
I,,l,r of III
system. 1t hurts the digestion, it heats the
blood in brain and heart until the whole body
is first overheated and then depressed. Be
side that, it sours the disposition, turns one
aside from his legitimate work, expends en-
ergies that ought to be better employed, and
does us more harm than it does our antago.
mist. Paul gives us a good, wide al
lowance of time for legitimate denunciation
from O'Clock to o'clock, but says: "StoI
therem Watch the descending orb of day, and
when il reaches the horizon take reef in your
disposition. Unloose your collar and cool
off. Change the subject to something de
lightfully pleasant. Unroll your tight fist
and shake hands with some one Bank III
the fires at the curfew bell. Drive the
growing dog of enmity back to its kennel
The hours of this morning will pass by, and
the afternoon will arrive, and the sun will
begin to set, and l beg you on its blazing
hearth throw all your feuds, invectives and
satires.
Other things being equal the man who pre-
serves good temper will come out ahead. An
old esSayist says that the celebrated John
Henderson of Bristol, England, was at a
dining party where political excitement ran
high and the debate got angry, and while
Henderson was speaking his opponent, un.
able to answer his argument, dashed glass
of wine in his face, when the speaker deliber-
ately wiped the liquid from his face and said:
This, sir, is depression; now, if you please
for the main argument" While worldly
philosophy could help but very few to such
equipoise of spirit the grace of God could
help any man to such triumph. sim.
possible" you say, 81 would have either
left the table in anger or have
knocked the man down" But 1 have
come to believe that nothing is impossible, il
God help, since what 1 saw at Beth-Shan
faith cure in London, England, two sum.
mers ago While the religious service was
going on Rev Dr. PoarinIan, glorious man.
since gone to his heavenly rest, was telling
the scores of sick people present that Christ
wac IhSlO 90 VI Olu w hCetl Oil ulScttotS, duU
that, if they would only believe, their sick
ness would depart. / saw a woman near me
with hand and arm twisted of rheumatism
and her wrist was fiery with inflammation
and it looked like those cases of chronic
rheumatism which we have all seen and sym
pathized with, cases beyond all human heal
ing. At the preachers reiteration of the
words: "Will you believe? Do you believed
Do you believe now!' heard this poor sick
woman say, with an emphasis which sounded
through the building: 81 do believe" And
then she lsid her twisted arm and hand out as
straight as your arm and hand, or mine II
had seen one rise from the dead would not
have been much more thrilled. Since then
] believe that God will do anything in an.
swer to our prayer and in answer to our
faith, and he can heal our bodies, and if our
soul is all twisted and misshapen of revenge
and hate and inflamed with sinful proclivity,
he can straighten that also and make it well
and clean. Aye, you will not postpone till
shutdown forgiveness of enemies if you can
realize that their behavior toward you may
be put into the catalogue of the call things''
that ''work together for good to those that
love God" have had multitlIdes of friends,
but ! have found in my own experience
that God SO arranged it that the greatest
of usefulness that have been
opened before me were opened by enemies.
And when, years ago, they conspired against
me, that opened all Christendom to me as a
field in which to preach the Gospel. So you
may harness your antagonists to your best
interests and compel them to draw you on to
better work and higher character Suppose,
instead of waiting until six minutes past
o'clock this evening, when the sun will set,
you transact this glorious work of forgive
ness before meridian.
Again, we ought not to let the sun go down
on our wrath, because we will sleep better if
we are at peace with everybody. Insomnia
is getting to be one of the most prevalent of
disorders. How few people retire at 10
o'clock at night and sleep clear through to 6
in the morningl To relieve this disorder all